Incompetence and cowardice result in poor roads and bridges

Sunday

Aug 3, 2014 at 12:01 AM

AAA of the Carolinas recently released its latest report on the state of bridges in South Carolina. Twenty-one percent of the state’s 9,200 bridges are not structurally fit to handle the amount of traffic they are currently bearing.

AAA of the Carolinas recently released its latest report on the state of bridges in South Carolina. Twenty-one percent of the state’s 9,200 bridges are not structurally fit to handle the amount of traffic they are currently bearing.Some of those bridges are in Spartanburg County. Six of the worst are on I-26.And bridges are only part of the problem. The Palmetto State’s roads and highways are in need of $30 billion of work over the next 20 years to restore them to good condition, according to the state Department of Transportation.There seems to be little hope the work will be done.On the federal level, Congress does not have the intestinal fortitude to finance the Federal Highway Trust Fund. The fund is fueled by federal gasoline taxes and parceled out to states for major transportation projects and maintenance.The fund would have started operating at a deficit this past Friday, but Congress passed a stopgap measure that will keep it going for a few more months, using accounting tricks to put another $11 billion into the fund. So far, Congress has refused to come up with a long-term plan to finance the fund.The obvious answer is to increase the federal gasoline tax, which hasn’t been raised in 20 years, failing to keep up with inflation. Congress is unwilling to do so in an election year.That same unwillingness to face facts can be seen in Columbia.South Carolina’s gasoline tax is one of the lowest in the nation. By raising it, South Carolina could get much of the money from out-of-state travelers who use our interstate highways. But no one in Columbia seems ready to take that obvious step.Instead, one candidate for governor has introduced a plan that would take money from the state’s general budget, and the governor insists she will reveal a road plan next year.

And, even if the money were raised for transportation projects in the state, we don’t have any assurance the money would be spent wisely.It would still be handled by a state Transportation Commission that has wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars in the past, a commission that has ignored state needs and priorities to fund a collection of pet projects.This is because, despite the waste and the bad judgment, the General Assembly has refused to reform the Department of Transportation. It hasn’t put the department under the governor, who could be held accountable for its performance. It insists on maintaining a transportation commission that has repeatedly failed the public’s trust.These factors combine to make it highly unlikely that our roads and bridges will see the improvement needed, at least not until people who want safe roads and bridges demand change in Columbia and Washington.